


me and you (and the time we don't have)

by Yukari



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: 3rd semester royal fic, Angst, Canon Compliant, Introspection, M/M, goro is having a terrible time, ren is oblivious to his dilemmas, talk about potential future death, this is very much not happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26683975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yukari/pseuds/Yukari
Summary: “Hang out with me.”“Huh? Care to repeat that?” Goro said, not being able to stop himself from frowning.“I said, hang out with me,” Ren repeated in a voice that was only telling Goro that he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. It sounded almost like an order, his gaze unyielding as he stared at Goro from behind his fake glasses. “I know you don’t have anything better to do right now, mister former detective prince."“I wouldn’t be having this problem if a certain someone just finally decided to proceed with the palace infiltration.” Goro simply gave him an irritated sigh. “Don’t you have something better to do? We don’t have enough time to be wasting it like this.”A terrible day from the life on borrowed time of one Goro Akechi.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 102





	me and you (and the time we don't have)

**Author's Note:**

> so i'm currently going through the 3rd semester of royal and just thinking about what Goro is going through during this month is causing me pain. therefore, i wrote it  
> just to be safe: i absolutely don't think Goro is actually dead or ever died in the first place, this was written only to illustrate what i think he was feeling during that arc. basically help me i can't do this anymore

“Hang out with me.”

“Huh? Care to repeat that?” Goro said, not being able to stop himself from frowning. 

“I said, hang out with me,” Ren repeated in a voice that was only telling Goro that he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. It sounded almost like an order, his gaze unyielding as he stared at Goro from behind his fake glasses. “I know you don’t have anything better to do right now, mister former detective prince. No more TV appearances, no more being at some bastard’s orders. You probably have a lot of free time.”

“I wouldn’t be having this problem if a certain someone just finally decided to proceed with the palace infiltration.” Goro just gave him an irritated sigh. “Don’t you have something better to do? We don’t have enough time to be wasting it like this.”

“Maybe you can fight without breaks,” Ren said firmly, “but not all of us can. Stop worrying so much, we’ll manage before the time limit even with breaks. We’ve almost secured our infiltration route already anyway.”

“Then go hang out with someone else.”

“Will you stop being difficult for a moment? I’m asking you, not anyone else,” he stated, still not budging. 

That was the problem. He was asking Goro, not anyone else. 

Maybe at one point in time it’d make him happy, to be chosen over all the other people, but right now he was probably the furthest thing from ‘happy’ that he ever was when interacting with Amamiya Ren. 

“Why are you being so insistent on this?” Goro asked, feeling his resolve waver more the longer he and Ren were staring at each other in this cold January weather. 

“Who knows?” The other boy replied, giving him a smirk, as if he could see that. “I know I’m bothering you, but just this once, humor me, Akechi.”

He shouldn’t agree. He had every reason to reject his invitation, both the ones that Ren knew about and the ones that he didn’t, and wasn’t ever supposed to learn of. Goro should just say ‘no’, even if only for the sake of his own sanity. Though somehow… he felt like he owed this to him, even if it would only make things worse later on. 

“Alright,” he sighed with resignation, watching Ren’s smirk turn into a warmer smile. “Just this once.”

Somewhere deep down, he always knew this guy was going to be the end of him. 

*** 

They somehow ended up in the familiar arcade in Shibuya, the one Goro hasn’t visited ever since he went there with Ren in August. Why would be have any other reason to go there again? To play on his own, like a loser, and be reminded of how much fun he was actually having that one time, for once in his goddamn life? 

What a sad joke. 

Thinking about this now wasn’t going to make him feel any better either. 

“That’s my victory.” Ren’s voice brought him back to reality, interrupting his gloomy thoughts. “Your mind isn’t really here. Normally there would be no way you’d let me win like this.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint you,” Goro grumbled, not even having the capacity to feel embarrassment for his poor performance. “I promise you, leader, I’d do better in the metaverse.”

“I thought you were supposed to be the best at everything, Crow,” the boy replied smugly, pointing the gun-shaped controller at the screen again. “One more time, this time pay attention, or else I’ll beat you again.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Ren smirked at him again.

“If you want it to be.”

“Very well then. Just don’t cry after I crush you next round, Joker.”

And so, he did pay attention this time, despite feeling like he was letting himself be pulled into Ren’s orbit way too easily, once more. It was so frustrating that he ended up putting extra effort into defeating him this time. 

He won, but they played another round after that, and another, and another... with the victory count somehow remaining even between them, despite neither of them cutting the other any slack. 

It was strangely exhilarating, but at the same time made Goro’s heart feel even heavier than before. 

“Now that’s something I understand!” Ren said with a laugh upon losing again. “Honestly, you losing so easily the first time made me a little angry, but you redeemed yourself.”

“Huh?” Goro winced a little at that wording, but quickly recollected himself. “Did you really bring me here just so you could try to best me at some video game?” 

At that, the smile disappeared from Ren’s face. 

“Well… not exactly,” he muttered, lowering the controller. “You know, when you first came to Leblanc after this whole madness started, I was really grateful for that.” 

“Why would you be? That’s stupid.” 

“Because thanks to you I no longer felt like I was going insane,” Ren snorted, but then turned serious once more. “You were the only person who remained the same in a world that’s gone all crazy, and you reached out to me. That meant a lot, so… when I invited you here, I wanted to see something.”

“And that would be…?” Goro asked, raising one brow.

“I wanted to see how different spending time with you now would be from when we did that before,” Ren said, “but it’s not actually that different. I’m still having fun. Maybe even more now.”

Goro froze for a solid second, his mind momentarily emptying itself of any thought. 

“What?”

“You know, when I thought you were dead, I was just thinking stupid things. About how I want to see you again, how I didn’t want to let things between us end like that,” he continued nonchalantly. Or maybe he was just trying to sound like that, because Goro was relatively sure he could hear something strained in his voice. “I think that’s the usual when someone you know dies and you have some unfinished business with them, and I’d say there’s quite a lot of unfinished things between me and you.”

Goro remained silent. He didn’t really know what he could say to him right now.

“But then, when you came back, turned yourself in and all of that, I started wondering... how things would actually look between us now, since you tried to kill me, and then sort of protected me, twice,” Ren talked, not even looking at him, but instead starting another round in Gun About, even though Goro didn’t bother with it anymore. “Do you hate me in the end? Do you not? How do I feel about you myself? I needed to find out.”

“...well, if you ask me, you have every reason to hate me,” Goro finally forced himself to speak. “I did tell you I hate you, after all.”

“But do you?” He asked, not even looking away from the screen and shooting another enemy. “Can you repeat that with full confidence now?”

He couldn’t. Well, maybe he could, if he wished to lie - but he didn’t really want to. 

When he said it last time, did he actually believe in what he was saying? Maybe. He probably did. But since then… a lot had changed. He understood a few things that he previously was blind to. Like the fact that he really wished things could be different between them, and that he hadn’t ruined everything before they even met. 

Changing that was impossible though, because those were the lives they made for themselves. The fact that their paths crossed at some point was both a blessing and a curse.

Really, what a sad joke. 

“I’ll interpret the silence as a ‘no’,” Ren said, and Goro could hear the smile in his voice. “Good, because I don’t hate you either.”

“Then you’re really stupid. More than I thought,” he replied quietly. 

“Maybe. I never tried to pretend I’m smart, mister detective. But… can I ask you one thing, Akechi?” 

“Go ahead, you’re already wasting my time anyway.”

Ren lowered the controller once more, despite the round still not being over, then turned in Goro’s direction with an unreadable expression. 

“Do you regret that?” 

Goro’s eyes widened at the question, and his fingers closed around the controller more tightly. It felt almost like a real gun in his hand. Almost. 

Sometimes he wished he didn’t know what the difference was. 

He didn’t even have to ask Ren what he meant by this question, he understood it much too well despite it being so vague. He also knew what the answer was, because Goro had so many regrets that he wouldn’t even know where to start listing them, which would be the biggest one, which would be the first one that started this whole trainwreck. None of these could be taken back though. None of them should be, and none of them would be. 

Goro would make sure of that soon enough. Everything was going to return to normal, to the reality in which he was an assassin under the orders of the might-have-been prime minister, who ruined the lives of way too many people, including his own… all for a meaningless goal. 

To the reality in which he was no longer around. 

It was fine though. It was how things should be, so he just had to make sure to destroy this creepy wonderland as soon as possible. He wasn’t going to hesitate now. It was the right thing to do. 

“Do you really think this is the right place for discussing something like that?” He asked, after taking a deep breath. “And the right moment. We have more important things on our minds.” 

“I see. So that’s your answer,” Ren muttered, looking away. “Well, you’re right, I suppose. If I were you, I’d probably also procrastinate on thinking about my future.” 

It wasn’t it. Goro was physically incapable of not overthinking every single thought that appeared in his mind, he’d always been like that.

It’s just that he had no future to possibly be thinking about. All he had… was this one month, like a dead man living on borrowed time, just because someone wanted that for him... That someone being the person standing right next to him.

It was so infuriating. Out of all people, Ren definitely shouldn’t be wishing for something like this, for him to live, but it was the only explanation for why he was even there in the first place. This thought alone was driving him mad. 

“But when this is all over, we defeat Maruki-sensei and take our old reality back… I want us to talk about that seriously, okay? About you, me, us, whatever,” Ren said, turning back to him with a somewhat forced smile. “Promise me that.” 

… 

One part of him wanted to just snap at Ren and yell at him, furious about how stupid he was, how Goro didn’t want any of that, that he should just leave him alone already because there was no point in wanting anything out of this relationship. Nothing good ever came out of it, and was never going to. 

Another part of him simply wanted to cry, but he wasn’t even sure if he remembered how to do that. There was a lot of things about himself that Ren made him recall though. About how once upon a time, he wanted to be a hero, too. About how a long time ago, he wasn’t such a bitter loser, and could smile genuinely, or feel things like joy and love. So maybe, just maybe, he could also make him relearn how to cry as well.

Except crying now was not going to help anyone or make anything better, and if he was going to die anyway, he could at least go out with dignity. Assuming he even had any left. 

“You can’t even give me that, huh?” Ren said after a moment of silence, and Goro could hear the disappointment in his voice. “Well, suit yourself.” 

This was for the best. If he pushed away the only person who apparently cared about him, no one would hesitate to shatter this world. He only had to pretend for a little longer, then everything would be fine. No one was going to miss him anyway. Or so he hoped.

“Can we just call it a day? You sort of ruined my mood with this stupid chit-chat, you know,” he heard himself say, as if someone else spoke those words and not him. 

“Sure. I’m not going to keep you here any longer, since I know you’re sooo busy,” Ren replied sarcastically, so Goro moved to put the controller away and leave. He was forced to stop in his tracks again though. “But know one thing, Akechi.” 

“...what is it again?” 

“I’m not giving up on you, even if you already did that to yourself,” he said, with so much confidence in his voice that for a second Goro wanted to believe that. 

After another second, the controller ended up abandoned where he earlier picked it up from, and he stormed out of the arcade as quickly as he could, leaving Ren behind. 

There was nothing he could tell that idiot. 

No apologies or confessions from a dead man could fix anything after all. So, he had to force back any tears, and tell himself he didn’t love Amamiya Ren in the slightest. He was going to leave no reason to be missed behind, once this was all over. That’s the path he chose for himself in the end, and he was going to walk it alone. Even if he didn’t want to die… even if Ren was making him want to live (or maybe especially because of that). 

Enough of dragging people down with himself, it was the only thing he could promise him now.

**Author's Note:**

> we're gonna get you that therapy goro you deserve it king


End file.
